1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to the art of carpets and, more particularly, to an apparatus for use in joining adjacent sections of modular floor covering units. More particularly, the present invention relates to an apparatus and method for using said apparatus as a connector for joining a plurality of modular floor covering units to one another and to a supporting surface.
2. Discussion of the Prior Art
In the field of modular floor covering unit installation, existing methods of installing such floor coverings typically involve a very labor and material intensive process. The process involves individually gluing down floor covering units using an adhesive. The adhesive is heavy, difficult to apply, costly, difficult to remove, and prone to failure. Using the prior art method, adhesive must be applied to the entire supporting surface or the entire underside of a floor covering unit. This process is costly in both labor and money and creates additional costs if floor covering units are to be replaced or removed.
Another method known in the art for installing modular floor covering units involves using adhesive connectors to connect modular floor covering units with adjacent units. Such “connector systems” of the prior art allow the modular floor covering to “float” on top of the supporting surface. These prior art systems use an adhesive to hold the edges of the adjacent flooring units together. One such system and method is the SYSTEM FOR CARPET TILE INSTALLATION, U.S. Pat. No. 8,434,282, issued May 7, 2013 (Scott et al.), which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. The method described in Scott et al. utilizes a one sided pressure sensitive adhesive tab that is approximately 72 mm square that has a releasable protective layer to join four sections of modular flooring units together. There a several problems with using this method to install a modular floor covering.
The modular flooring units are typically heavy in nature and the bond between the tile connector and modular flooring unit is relatively weak compared to traditional adhesives. In the Scott et al. tile connector, the connector is formed from an inert plastic that is coated with an adhesive. Although the connector is water resistant, it is not completely waterproof. This may cause the connector to fail under some conditions. Floor covering units are constantly under attack from moisture. The Scott et al. prior art claims the connectors are water resistant because the connectors only have adhesive on one side, the upwards facing side, making the connector less susceptible to moisture from the subfloor. However, this ignores adhesive failure from moisture sources above the connector. For example, a business such as a hotel may steam clean the floor covering unit connected by a Scott et al. type adhesive connector. Further the floor frequently may have liquids spilled on it and may experience wet winter conditions. This “wetting” occurs from above and moisture leeches down onto the face of the prior art connector, making it highly susceptible to moisture and potential connector failure.
The Scott et al. type prior art tile connectors have a high rate of failure in areas of heavy traffic and along modular flooring unit seams. Heavier traffic from office equipment, foot traffic, chairs etc. puts a strain on these connectors. The strain from heavier traffic may cause the connectors to fail in one or more ways.
The first type of failure for the Scott et al. type adhesive connectors is that the glue will stretch or fail under a heavy force such a chair rolling or other heavy object being moved across the floor covering. To address this problem, modular floor covering installers may use a spray adhesive in a can to supplement this type of adhesive connector system to give the seams of the modular floor covering extra strength. However, doing so removes most of the advantages of this type of connector system and introduces volatile organic chemicals (“VOCs”) into the installation area. VOCs present in the installation area require at a minimum additional ventilation and may also necessitate installing the modular floor covering after work hours when an area is subject to much lower traffic.
The second type of failure occurs if there is an excessive force in one direction. If such a force is imparted on the connector, the adhesive connector will fail altogether and “bunch up” underneath the modular flooring unit causing a “profiling” underneath that can be seen above the surface of the modular flooring unit.
Furthermore, the Scott et al. type prior art connector may only be used with modular floor covering units having a proprietary backing (e.g., a composite glass backing) that is used in the manufacturing process.
There also exist other carpet seaming methods for joining together two segments of floor covering material along long, straight seams. Such methods include CARPET SEAMING APPARATUS AND METHOD OF UTILIZING THE SAME, U.S. Pat. No. 5,800,664, issued Sep. 1, 1998 (Covert), and SEAMING APPARATUS AND METHOD, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/309,632, filed Jun. 19, 2014, (LeBlanc et al.), both of which are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.
What is needed is a modular floor covering unit connector for joining adjacent modular floor covering units that is resistant to pressure, lateral force, moisture, high traffic, heavy loads, and excessive wear that may be used on a variety of support surfaces to join multiple types of modular floor covering units.